The Lost Seas

Smoking Crown Initiates

The Smoking Crown Initiates are a death cult who worships the dark primal spirit of fire in the form of the Smoking Crown, Athas’ largest and most impressive volcano (sometimes referring to her as Vezzuvu, the Burning Mountain). They have repeatedly come into conflict with the sorcerer-kings (who see primal spirits as rivals for reverence) and especially with King Hamanu of Urik because of Urik’s obsidian mines in the foothills of the Smoking Crown range.

The Smoking Crown Initiates are known for their frequent human sacrifices to the volcano and for the ritual burn scars that crisscross their bodies. In recent decades, the SCI have seen some success in their war against Urik, driving all miners off the slopes of the Smoking Crown itself and forcing them to mine lesser veins of obsidian in the foothills of smaller volcanoes, such as the Rim of Dawn; it has been more than a century since Urik’s camps down the Old Road have been used. The SCI also frequently attack these mines and the caravans that supply them. Urikite merchant houses are constantly calling for the Urikite military to step up its operations against SCI villages on the slope of the Smoking Crown.

K’Tek was raised in a village controlled by the Smoking Crown Initiates and was captured and enslaved by House Kish after participating in an SCI raid against a Kish mining gang.